


Practice

by deadinderry



Category: Metallica
Genre: Sort Of, kea-era, like...implied kirk/cliff, you know kirk's just cute and cliff is accepting that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 04:03:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20370391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadinderry/pseuds/deadinderry
Summary: Kirk is new.





	Practice

**Author's Note:**

> I just, you know, pictures of Kirk Hammett in those big fucking glasses are just.

Cliff was not exactly unfamiliar with Kirk Hammett, even before they kicked Dave out and replaced him with the kid. They’d hung out with Exodus before, and Kirk had always seemed pretty chill, nice, funny, et cetera. Then he shows up with his guitar, straight from California, songs totally learned, and they start pulling him into the fold. It’s cute, how he wears a button-up for shows. Granted, most of the time said button-up is half or all the way unbuttoned by the end of the show, but it’s like he’s dressing up and it’s cute.

And they have a lot in common, Cliff and Kirk. Horror’s one. Horror’s a big thing. There is nothing like seeing Kirk’s eyes light up when he’s talking about some old horror movie or something. He grins all wide, showing off that horror-movie-set-of-teeth of his own, and it is beautiful.

They’re in New York, recording their asses off—barely had a break, because they don’t have any money and they stay up too late and too drunk to be of any use before midday, and so they end up recording late, and so they end up drinking, and so—

You get the idea.

But there’s a lull right now. Cliff doesn’t know why he’s awake so early, it’s like, eleven, but he’s awake, and he has to take a piss more than anything, and they’re staying in someone’s basement that he thinks these guys sometimes rent out, or something (honestly, he has no fucking clue what’s going on about ninety percent of the time), because there’s a nice little kitchen and everything. A bedroom, a bathroom, a little kitchen, a couch. They all crashed in the bedroom. It’s just a kiddie bed, so it turned into ‘Lars is the only one who will physically fit on this bed, except maybe Kirk, but Kirk’s too intimidated to try and go for it’, and everyone else crashed in various places on the floor.

So Cliff goes and takes a piss and is going to head back to see if he can sleep more, because he’s awake but he doesn’t _like _it, but he hears movement and he’s just wondering who the hell’s awake or if it’s someone barging in on them. Given how they are as people, it’s probably the latter, so he’s actually legitimately surprised when he walks out and sees Kirk on the couch picking at his guitar. He doesn’t have it plugged in to an amp or anything (which is good, because all of them would legit come out here and beat him to death with it if he woke them up), but he’s picking at it, running through riffs and little solos and everything. He looks up at Cliff when Cliff walks in.

“Did I wake you up?”

See, the thing is, Kirk Hammett’s already got these big brown eyes. But the motherfucker’s wearing _glasses_, these big magnified specs, and it’s goddam unfair.

“No,” Cliff says. “I had to take a piss. Why the fuck are you awake?”

Kirk shrugs. “I kept fucking up yesterday, the one part of ‘Phantom Lord’, and I wanted to get it right.”

Yeah, James had been kind of pissed about that.

Cliff goes and collapses on the couch next to him. Kirk goes at the guitar for a little bit longer, and he is getting it, Cliff can tell where he’s hitting it right now, and it makes him wonder how long the kid’s been up.

So Cliff gets out his bass. And since he doesn’t give a shit whether he wakes up the two assholes in the other room, he plugs it in, and he lets loose. When he looks up again, Kirk’s stopped playing, his eyes wide.

“Plug it in,” Cliff says. “Wake ‘em up. If I’m awake, they’re gonna be awake.”

Kirk looks at him like he’s crazy, but he’s starting to grin a little, too, and he goes and then they’re both playing off of each other, not even doing album shit anymore, but pieces of covers and random shit they’ve had bouncing around in their head. Kirk rips into this solo that, honest to _God _is better than anything Dave ever came up with (and even though he’s an asshole Cliff will admit that Dave’s a damn good guitar player), and it’s honestly so good that Cliff has to kick him in the knee to get him to cut it the fuck out, he can’t take something like that at eleven-thirty in the morning.

Kirk’s grinning full-force at him now, and Cliff shakes his head and goes back into it. He goes back and forth; sometimes he’ll grab a guitar for messing around on when they’re not onstage or recording or whatever, but he grabbed his bass. He doesn’t know why. Maybe it’s because Kirk needs some goddam confidence.

He doesn’t know how long they’re doing this before a shoe flies through the air and smacks into the wall between their heads, and James walks out, scowling. Lars follows, rubbing at his head. He looks more confused than anything.

“What the _fuck_,” James says. “Is going on.”

“Practicing,” Cliff says.

“It’s eleven-thirty,” James says. “Why the fuck are you _awake_?”

“Had to piss.”

“And so you—”

“Yeah.”

“You wear glasses?” Lars asks Kirk.

Cliff is pretty sure that this is not the first time Kirk has worn his glasses, but Lars isn’t exactly all that great at seeing things beyond his current obsession, so he’ll give him a pass.

“Yeah,” Kirk says.

“Why the _fuck_,” James is still on this.

“Sorry,” Kirk says.

“Fuck you,” Cliff says. He doesn’t know who he’s saying it to and he’s pretty sure none of them do, either, but they all just kind of pause, take a step back, and eventually Lars says,

“I’m hungry. Let’s get breakfast.”


End file.
